It seems an easy theme, yet I couldn’t do the thing to my satisfaction.  All I got out of it was an article on Monaco & Monte Carlo—­matters not connected with the subject at all.  Still, that was something—­it’s better than a total loss.

He finished the article—­“Diplomatic Pay and Clothes”—­in which he shows how absurd it is for America to expect proper representation on the trifling salaries paid to her foreign ministers, as compared with those allowed by other nations.

He prepared also a reminiscent article—­the old tale of the shipwrecked Hornet and the magazine article intended as his literary debut a generation ago.  Now and again he worked on some one of the several unfinished longer tales, but brought none of them to completion.  The German drama interested him.  Once he wrote to Mr. Rogers that he had translated “In Purgatory” and sent it to Charles Frohman, who pronounced it “all jabber and no play.”

Curious, too, for it tears these Austrians to pieces with laughter.  When I read it, now, it seems entirely silly; but when I see it on the stage it is exceedingly funny.

He undertook a play for the Burg Theater, a collaboration with a Vienna journalist, Siegmund Schlesinger.  Schlesinger had been successful with several dramas, and agreed with Clemens to do some plays dealing with American themes.  One of them was to be called “Die Goldgraeberin,” that is, “The Woman Gold-Miner.”  Another, “The Rival Candidates,” was to present the humors of female suffrage.  Schlesinger spoke very little English, and Clemens always had difficulty in comprehending rapid-fire German.  So the work did not progress very well.  By the time they had completed a few scenes of mining-drama the interest died, and they good-naturedly agreed that it would be necessary to wait until they understood each other’s language more perfectly before they could go on with the project.  Frau Kati Schratt, later morganatic wife of Emperor Franz Josef, but then leading comedienne of the Burg Theater, is said to have been cast for the leading part in the mining-play; and Director-General Herr Schlenther, head of the Burg Theater management, was deeply disappointed.  He had never doubted that a play built by Schlesinger and Mark Twain, with Frau Schratt in the leading role, would have been a great success.

Clemens continued the subject of Christian Science that winter.  He wrote a number of articles, mainly criticizing Mrs. Eddy and her financial methods, and for the first time conceived the notion of a book on the subject.  The new hierarchy not only amused but impressed him.  He realized that it was no ephemeral propaganda, that its appeal to human need was strong, and that its system of organization was masterful and complete.  To Twichell he wrote: 

Somehow I continue to feel sure of that cult’s colossal future....  I am selling my Lourdes stock already & buying Christian Science trust.  I regard it as the Standard Oil of the future.